


Need to believe (you could hold me down)

by comedy-witch (calamaris)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Arguing, Drama & Romance, Established Relationship, F/M, Making up and making out, Miscommunication, Robin is gay and tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22805185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calamaris/pseuds/comedy-witch
Summary: Steve and Reader get in an argument about moving in together and old insecurities are brought to light.
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Reader
Kudos: 67





	Need to believe (you could hold me down)

**Author's Note:**

> I generally have a very hard time writing arguments just because I think it sounds like they come out of absolutely nowhere and can come off as if two people are bickering in separate rooms and not at each other. BUT I think this one came out alright.  
> Also, I'm trying to focus less on putting up mature/explicit fics just for the sake of having smut. Because I already have a trainwreck of stuff with PLENTY of that, I think I need to branch out a lil bit. Explore relationships and friendships!
> 
> Anywho, really hope you enjoy!!  
> PS. I love Robin

Family Video is deserted on Tuesday evenings. It’s just a date between you, Steve, and Top Gun.

You close up another VHS tape and peer down at Tom Cruise. He’s staring back at you, with Kelly McGillis daintily draped over his shoulders.

“I’ve been thinking…” you start.

“Oh no, don’t hurt yourself.” Steve says. You reach over and pinch his butt and he yips, slapping your hand away with a laugh.

“What do you think about us moving in together?” you ask.

Steve looks at you for a second, and then looks back down at the pile of VHS tapes he’s organizing. His laughter is gone, and his smile is quickly disappearing. You frown a little, concerned.

“What about college?” he says instead of answering your question.

You quirk up a brow, “What about it?”

He looks at you like you’re speaking another language. “C’mon, you have to go to college.”

You look right back at him, confusion etching into your features more and more, “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about, you can’t just stay here.”

“Aren’t you staying here?”

“Well, yeah but that’s –”

“That’s _what?”_ you raise your eyebrows in challenge.

“That’s different.” he replies, lamely.

You laugh in disbelief, “No it isn’t!”

“Yes it is! I applied and didn’t get in, you’re just not applying at all.”

You put your hands on your hips, “Because I don’t know what I want to do yet. I’m not going just because someone tells me I have to.”

“What, and stay here working at Family Video like a deadbeat?”

You’re taken aback at how this has turned out, your breath coming out in a rush. You wanted to talk to him about something dear to your heart – something you’d talked about with him a few times. Never fully considered but dreamt about, the two of you smiling together just thinking of the future together. But you can’t process what the hell is happening. Steve’s treating it like a joke, and you’re waiting for a punchline.

“You’re kidding.” you say.

He just stares back at you. As if you’re being the unreasonable one.

“ _Steve.”_

* * *

Robin is running late. She's supposed to be closing tonight, taking over for your finishing shift. She makes her way along the sidewalk that runs the front of the strip mall. It’s habitual for her to peer through the windows of the shops, most of them closed at this late hour. The interior lighting of Family Video paints the sidewalk in a pale yellow. She can see you and Steve but something is different – she’s pulled from her idle musing when she notices your posture. Your expressions are harsh, brows pushed together, cheeks hot with fury.

Robin picks up speed toward the door.

* * *

“I don’t have to do _anything_ just because you _tell me_!” you grit your teeth.

“That so? Well, maybe you should try it once in a while.”

“Oh _yeah_?”

“Yes, because you’re being needlessly stubborn _.”_

You laugh, voice laden with acid, “Oh that’s _rich!_ The pot calling the kettle black!” Steve shakes his head, looking toward the corner of the ceiling, hands on his hips.

“All I wanted was to have an actual, serious _talk_ about moving in together and suddenly you’re lecturing me like a mother, telling me I have to go to college instead,” your hands raise into the air, “as if it’s the way _God intended!”_

“You’re putting words in my mouth and you know it.”

“You didn’t even answer my question, you changed the subject! We’ve talked about moving in before, and I just wanted to—”

His voice bursts out of him suddenly, “FORGET ABOUT MOVING IN TOGETHER!”

You stare at him, eyes wide, absolutely devastated. He’s never talked to you like this. He’s never raised his voice at you, or treated something important to you callously. _He_ was the one who had first entertained the idea, who had first planted it in your head as if it could happen. And now he was treating you like a child, like you were stupid for even hoping.

The front door chimes its welcome, alerting the two of you that there’s a customer. Only Steve looks over, your head turned down and away, eyes frozen open like you’re stuck on pause. Robin is standing in the doorway. If she hadn’t realized the two of you were fighting, she’d think you were utterly fascinated at the carpet. She can see you wipe at your nose, your shoulders hitch up around your ears, and then you do a full spin just to avoid facing Steve again, making your way to the counter and grabbing your things.

“Hey, wait a minute—” Steve calls after you, his cheeks faded to an embarrassed pink.

“My shift’s over,” you mumble, grabbing your jacket and bag from the cabinet, hot tears streaking down your cheeks. Robin opens the door a bit further for you to make your brave exit, but Steve is just as fast.

He tries to take hold of your arm and you snap it away. He finally sees your expression and you’re seething, your eyes red and damp from tears. “ _Don’t_ touch me.” you say, your bottom lip quivering. You bite down the hiccupping in your voice, feeling like a scorned child. And the two of them watch you walk out from under the light of Family Video and into the dark.

Steve sighs, turns back to the counter, running his hands through his hair like he’s about to tear it out.

Robin is staring at him, arms slack at her sides in utter disbelief, “Okay. What the _hell_ was that?”

* * *

Robin finishes piling up the rest of the VHS tapes. “So she doesn’t want to go to college? So what?”

“You’re missing the point. She just didn’t apply, she could’ve gotten in anywhere.”

Robin turns to look at him, “You’re angry at her because she didn’t apply to places she didn’t want to go?”

“No, I’m just… _frustrated_ because she didn’t apply _at all.”_

Robin almost laughs, leaning against the counter. “Do you want her to leave Hawkins that badly?”

“ _No,”_

Robin sighs. “Steve, you have to stop treating her like she’s going to leave you. She’s staying here because she wants to stay.”

“So what, so she can be like us?”

Robin looks almost offended, “I quite like us, actually. Me most of all, you not so much right now.” she kicks his sneaker. He gives her a _look_ like that’s not what he meant but she just scoffs. “You’re being a dingus.” she says, and tosses another film case at him.

Steve catches it and put it on the shelf, he takes his hand away and Ferris Bueller is staring back at him, leisure and carefree. Steve grunts, turns the case around so the description is facing the aisle. Robin steps forward and turns it back around with a pointed look.

“I just don’t want her to settle for this.” he walks back to the counter to grab another VHS.

“Ferris Bueller?” Robin snarks.

“Christ, _Robin_ …no.”

“For Family Video?”

Steve slides a VHS case across the counter and it bumps into the rest of Robin’s pile, teetering precariously. “No! I mean me!” he says. And Robin blinks, understanding dawning on her. He runs a hand through his hair again, “I mean _me_.”

Robin knows his previous heartbreak, Steve has been candid about that with her. But she wonders just how much he’s told _you_. Because if he opened up about it, showed you that fear, Robin knows he’d be terrified of history repeating itself.

She steps up to him and puts a hand on his arm. “Steve,” she whispers. “You have to talk to her.”

His nose flares when he lets out a breath, hair mussed from his fretting. He looks through the front window, contemplative and quiet.

He knows. He _knows._

* * *

The next day it was yours and Steve’s day off. You were supposed to go to the bookstore. But instead you’re washing a coffee mug and listening to depressing vinyls. The doorbell rings and you pull up the tone arm of the record player, stopping the music. You pad over in your slippers and open the front door to reveal your boyfriend, looking particularly forlorn.

“Here to drop off college brochures?” you snip.

“I deserve that.”

You cross your arms, though the spot of color at Steve’s arm pulls your attention from his face down to his hand. He’s holding a bouquet of purple flowers.

“I uh… these are for you.” he offers the bouquet, and your resolve wanes. Not only is staying angry exhausting, you hate being angry at _Steve_.

You relent, gingerly taking the bouquet from his hand, his fingers brushing against yours. You glance back up at his face and you realize how mutually hard this has been. The last time you saw Steve last night, his face was flushed red with anger and frustration. Now he just looks anxious and tired.

His gaze is nervous, flitting between your face and the flowers. “They’re hyacinths, the shopkeeper said they’re for—”

You lean forward and press your lips just at the corner of his mouth. Not intended as a kiss, but a reassurance. “I know.” you say softly. His breath shudders out of him, like his heart has been working overtime and only now is he calming down.

“Come in.” you beckon him after you, and walk down the hall to the kitchen. Steve closes the front door and kicks his sneakers off. You unravel the paper around the bouquet and clean the stems. It’s quiet, save for the _snip, snip, snip_ of the kitchen scissors. You set another tuft of flowers down on the kitchen counter, moving onto the next. The monotonous task serving a safe place for you to both think.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said.” Steve says, finally.

You look over at him, your lips pressed together but upturned at the corners wryly. You’re not angry anymore, you’re just sad. “Probably not.”

“I thought you were just trying to…save my feelings, that you were only staying here because of me or Robin or, I don’t know—”

“For the wrong reasons?” you offer and he sighs.

“Yes. And in my head I know you wouldn’t do that.” his gaze moves to your hands while you adjust the bouquet in a clear vase. “You know what you want, it’s just that I _don’t._ And I’m—I’m…”

You stop what you’re doing, leaning against the counter and giving him your full attention. You don’t know if it helps, because your gaze seems to make him even more nervous.

“You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“And you don’t?” It’s not accusatory, it’s just confused.

Steve relents a little, knowing how he sounds. “Yeah, I do too, but it’s different. Because I wasn’t smart enough to get into any colleges that I wanted, and I’m not going anywhere with this job. But you, you’re–” he trails off, looking down. And then you understand what this is really about.

“Steve,” you hold his face in your hands, willing him to look at you. “I’m not dating you based on your _job_ , I’m dating you because I _love_ you.”

It crushes him. Steve loves you and he wants what’s best for you, even if it _isn’t_ what’s best for him. Even if that means leaving. He closes his eyes, holds your hands to his face, kissing your palms. His eyebrows pinch together, deciding whether or not to tell you, to admit what is so painful.

“I _want_ to move in with you.” he says all at once, “I _want_ you to stay _.”_ the confession spilling out like an overturned glass. “But I don’t want to hold you back either – I don’t want you t–to _settle_ , because you’re brilliant and so smart and talented and beautiful—”

And you kiss him, hard enough that his breath stutters in surprise. You don’t pull back, you pull him even closer, Steve’s hands wrapping around your shoulders and kissing you just as fervently. And the two of you are in your parent’s kitchen, mouths pressed together, until anything and everything is one another. Steve moves his hands to grasp at your waist and you start tugging off his jacket, and he helps you, the kisses in between leaving you breathless. And Steve is looking at you like you’re the only thing he knows, reaching for you as soon as his jacket is off and his arms are free. You press your hands to the flat of his stomach, fingers curling and moving up toward his chest where his heart beats loud and fast.

“Take off your clothes,” you whisper out harshly and Steve’s eyebrows shoot up. And you didn’t think it would be possible to be even more charmed by Steve, but the genuine amazement in his voice, his _want_ makes you certain you’ll never love anyone as much as you love him _._

“We’re – you mean right now?” he asks, surprise in his voice. Even as he leans in to kiss you again, your hands hold his face, affectionate and unwavering. You start walking backward toward your bedroom, still close enough that you breathe each other in. He laughs, as quiet as a secret.

“Right now.”

* * *

You pull on a t-shirt, crawling back into bed next to Steve. Your bedsheets are rumpled at his knees, and so you tug them up to cover the both of you. Steve turns on his side when you’re comfortable, hand skirting under the fabric of your shirt to trail his palm against the warm skin of your stomach. You push his hair away from his face, fingers tangling in the shorter tufts curling at the nape of his neck and behind his ears.

“I’m not _not_ going to college to spite anyone,” you say softly. He presses his forehead to your temple. “I genuinely want to wait so I can make the right decision.”

Steve sighs, hot breath fanning down your neck. “I know. I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you. Or gotten angry. I’m really sorry.”

You kiss his forehead. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve realized it looked like I didn’t care. Like I was throwing it away or something,” you turn so you can twine your arms around him better, Steve’s hand moving from your stomach to the small of your back, “I know you had worked hard.”

His smile is small but it’s there, “We should’ve just talked about it before. Everything.”

“Even moving in?”

He gives you a meaningful look, brown eyes warm and genuine, “ _Especially_ that.”

“Mm,” you agree wordlessly. You lean down and nudge his chin up with your nose, kissing the freckles on his neck.

He sighs, and then gulps once, Adams apple moving. It’s quiet while you kiss him, soft and tender. “P-probably should tell Robin we made up.” he stutters out.

Your mouth presses to his neck, kissing gently, and then a little more open. He sighs, melting into your touch, his hand moving to hold the back of your neck. And then you suck hard enough that he _yelps._ His hand comes away from you and slaps against his own neck in defence.

“Hey, hey, hey!” he holds the spot you bruised, lifts his palm, and then points at the mark, “Not like this! Not again!”

You laugh, crawling back into his arms despite his protests. And then when you pull the covers over the both of your heads and _still_ can’t stop your own laughter, Steve laughs too.


End file.
